Communiqué in Solidarity with the People of Honduras

Communiqué in Solidarity with the People of Honduras

June 28, 2021

We, Honduran immigrants in the United States and Canada, express our solidarity with the Honduran people in resistance. We remember with rage the US-backed coup that ousted democratically-elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. This event changed Honduras' contemporary history by installing the Nationalist Party regimes of Porfirio Lobo and Juan Orlando Hernández, which have privileged the interests of a few elites over the lives of the impoverished majorities. As young immigrants and children of immigrants living in the Global North, we recognize our responsibility to denounce the injustices created and perpetuated by the governments of the countries in which we now reside and stand firmly in solidarity with those most impacted by the 2009 coup and the corrupt and violent governments that followed.

We call for an end to US and Canadian military and diplomatic “aid” to Honduras, since history tells us this money does not go directly to the hands of those most impacted by injustice. Instead, this “aid” benefits multinational corporations that extract resources and exploit workers, supports the hyper-militarization of Honduran society, and aids the repression of impoverished workers, women, LGBTI people, and Black, Indigenous as well as Afro-Indigenous communities.

Immigration and Forced Displacement Post 2009-coup

Earlier this month, US Vice President Kamala Harris lectured Central Americans who might be considering fleeing Guatemala to go to the United States, "Do not come. Do not come." This tone deaf statement reflected the continuation of harmful bipartisan foreign and immigration policies toward Central America. During her trip, Harris brought executives from corporations like Nestle and Microsoft and met with Guatemala’s elites and not the people most directly affected by US immigration policy, such as deportees and their families, or the families of those killed in detention centers or at the US-Mexico border. Despite Harris’ rhetoric, the administration fails to address the root causes of Central American migration and willfully obscures the fact that much of the forced displacement from Central America today is in fact created by US foreign policy, including the 2009-coup, which paved the wave for free market capitalism at the expense of the country’s most impoverished Black and Indigenous citizens.

 Militarization and US Aid

As an extension of Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative, the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI) expanded the so-called War on Drugs and Terrorism through the pretext of combating gangs and organized crime when, in fact, the same politicians have proven to be pivotal in drug trafficking. The recent conviction of Tony Hernández, JOH’s brother, and Fabio Lobo, Pepe Lobo’s son, highlight the extent of government corruption in Honduras. In 2021, the US Congress appropriated $505.9 million in foreign assistance for Central America in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, despite the rampant corruption noted in cases like Pandora’s Box in which politicians embezzled more than $70 million in public funds through nonprofit organizations solicited through the District Development Fund and Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock. Honduras exports billions of dollars in agricultural and manufacturing goods, yet nearly half the population lives off $5 a day.

Femicides and Gender Violence

This past January, a corrupt congress led by the Nationalist party enshrined in the constitution that abortion and gay marriage are illegal, making reproductive rights and LGBTI rights nearly impossible to achieve. Meanwhile, femicides and domestic violence are at an all time high; according to the Centro de Derechos de la Mujer, there were 278 murders of cisgender women in 2020 and there have been 45 multiple homicides or massacres this year alone.

Garifuna women have been targeted, arrested and disappeared or killed for defending their ancestral territory from encroaching privatization. We condemn the murders of Mirna Teresa Suazo Martínez, president of an organization of the Community of Masca in Omoa; Gilma Cacho, and her daughter, Fiori Amaya, from the Garifuna municipality of Santa Rosa de Aguán in Colón; and Nayda Reyez Jiménez, in the community of Bajamar, Puerto Cortés. We also condemn the disappearance of Garifuna leaders in 2020, president of Triunfo de la Cruz and member of OFRANEH, Alberth Centeno, along with Milton Martínez, Suami Mejía, Gerardo Róchez, and Junior Mejía. We stand in solidarity with SUNLA, the campaign to find out what happened to them led by Garifuna communities across the Americas.

The Red Lésbica CATTRACHAS has documented that, from 2009 to 2021, there have been 387 LGBTI murders: 121 Transgender women, 45 lesbians, and 220 gay men. Very few, if any, of these cases have been prosecuted to date, an indication of the Nationalist government’s indifference and neglect.

We express solidarity with the LGBTI community who are fighting for their rights.

The murder of feminist and Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres was financed by elites with ties to military officials and the ruling classes demonstrate that the Hernández regime does not protect the life of women and Indigenous people from corporations.

We stand in solidarity with COPINH and all Indigenous land and water defenders and call for the prosecution of David Castillo and the Atala family for the murder of Berta Cáceres.

Free Trade Private Cities Displace Afro-Indigenous Communities

Zones for Employment and Development in Honduras, or ZEDEs, are free trade, private cities, in which National Honduran territory is sold to a developer who will form their own government, laws, and security. While in rhetoric they are presented as “autonomous” or “employment sites,” this model is a private city which infringes on national territory and sovereignty, as the owners of this land will not be beholden to the Honduran constitution and laws of the land. Instead, these “model cities” are built on ancestral lands of Garifuna and Lenca displacing already vulnerable communities.

We stand in solidarity with all Hondurans resisting ZEDEs.

Protection for Water and Land Protectors

We stand in solidarity with the Guapinol Water Protectors and all land defenders in Honduras who are persecuted unjustly, jailed or killed for protecting rivers and forests of our ancestral lands.

As exiles, refugees, and migrants displaced from our homelands due to US foreign policy, including imperialist wars and environmental disasters created by capitalist extractivism, we carry the collective memory and commitment to struggle for the liberation of the land and people across the isthmus.